In the latest of his visits to pioneering low-carbon companies, Andrew Gaved hears from Ridgespear why the potential of underfloor heating should be grasped by specifiers.
The low-carbon appeal of heat pump technology has seen a lot of companies jostling for position in the marketplace. However, the number of manufacturers who offer a heat pump alongside a heat distribution system that can optimise the efficiency benefits of the technology is currently very much lower.
This is just one reason why the Exeter-based Ridgespear Group believes it can make serious headway with specifiers seeking low-carbon solutions. The distinctive aesthetic of the group’s OMNIE-branded heat pumps turned heads at this year’s InstallerSHOW, and the company is confident that this new range, when coupled with the benefits of its well-established Underfloor Heating technology, can provide a compelling energy-efficient and user-friendly heating installation.
One of the challenges to wider take-up of this combination however, according to OMNIE’s managing director Brendan Hourican, is the simple fact that many specifiers seem to find it hard to see beyond the time-honoured option of putting radiators in – often oversized ones at that. The efficiency of UFH technology is generally well understood by developers, he says, but the mission is now to win hearts and minds as to the simplicity and capital cost parity of installation.
“UFH used to be a luxury item,” he says, “But on a ground floor, if you were building a house from scratch and you could put pipe and staple in a screed – as you would be insulating and putting in the screed in any case – I would argue that UFH is actually cheaper than radiators. And even on a first floor, where you have a structured floor already, I don’t believe the cost of UFH would be much different.”
And, he adds, removing radiators automatically opens up a lot more design flexibility for the housebuilder. “By putting radiators on the wall you are limiting the places you can put a bed in smaller rooms.”
However, the current situation in new residential developments doesn’t favour the UFH route. “Housebuilders give a menu of options to prospective buyers, so why aren’t they giving the customer a choice of whether to fit Underfloor Heating or Radiators?” he contends, “Some are currently charging extra for changing the spec. And that is just for UFH – that’s before we get to the customer options for heat pumps.”
And, as we will hear, OMNIE promises a lot of benefits to its systems, having spent a good 30 years perfecting the art of the underfloor, in the various guises of the business.
Having previously been at another large UFH-maker Polypipe, Brendan is well-versed in advocating for the technology – but he believes that with the requirements of Net Zero, UFH’s time has really come. And lest anyone doubt his commitment to the technology, he even has underfloor heating in his loft.
What follows is a deep dive into why not all UFH systems are equal:
UFH and heat
The crux of the matter is the heat transfer, Brendan stresses: “Heat will travel in a 45 degree angle either side of the pipe, so if you have got a conventional cement-board system which uses 12 mm pipe and an 8 mm tile laying on top, you’ve only got a one inch strip of floor that is going to get heated up.”
To test his theory he put a thermal camera on his existing – non-OMNIE – cement-board UFH system in his kitchen: “On the pipe, it measured at 34 deg C but three inches to the left, it was 22 deg C – and that is repeated across the floor.”
Brendan notes that, given the UFH is designed to heat the air in a room, rather than heat the floor directly, this phenomenon of ‘thermal striping’ is not actually a dealbreaker – and the company still offers its own cement board option for applications where there is no alternative for tiled floors – but it represents a compromise, which the company would rather avoid.
Instead, OMNIE mitigates the striping effect in two ways: either by means of a screed layer or by use of an aluminium diffuser, both of which spread the heat at 360 degrees across the room.
An aluminium diffuser offers other benefits too: its conductiveness will help to keep the floor temperature beneath the peak maximum of 29 deg C, as specified by the British Standard. Not having that aluminium layer would create something of a problem, he says: “If you have large areas of glass, for instance, I guarantee that your floor will go over 29 degrees.”
The OMNIE solution is the Torfloor 2, a combined structural floor and UFH system for timber constructions. It features an innovative method to lift the pipe up as close to the floor surface as possible – its lower panel is routed to 9 mm depth, yet it is designed for a pipe that is 12 mm in diameter. This mathematical conundrum is resolved by having the cover panel routed to 3 mm depth underneath, so the pipe fits snugly into the recess.
And, he adds, because the pipe is captive in the recess, the installer knows that it will match exactly to the fixing point and pipe warning markings on the cover board.
Another design innovation is the use of its patented AL HEX heat diffuser layer, which incorporates hexagonal perforations. Brendan notes that the geometry of a hexagon ensures that even on bends, every inch of floor and every pipe run is in contact with aluminium, for optimum heat transfer,. It also means there are no rigid plates and thus none of the clicking noise with expansion and contraction that often occurs in traditional metal underplate UFH systems.
Such small details to improve either the user experience or the system efficiency are the hallmark of the Ridgespear approach, he adds, before noting another such detail: the OMNIE routing is designed to ensure that the pipe will never just pop out of the recess. “This is particularly the case with our Torfloor 2,” he says proudly, “The pipe isn’t sitting in a deep recess, but it is securely held in place.”
In a bid to make the efficiency gains clear to the customer – and a novel way to differentiate the technology benefits from the rest of its rivals – the company has introduced the 50:50 Performance Benchmark. It looks like a bit like an Energy Label and features a graphic showing the product’s output per square metre at 50 deg C flow temperature, based on a 1 tog floor covering. At the same time, the label also shows what flow temperature would be needed to achieve 50 W per square metre. Also like the Energy Label, the result is shown as a coloured bar, from red to green.
“If every underfloor heating company was using this, everyone would know how each system performs,” says Brendan, before adding wryly: “Other manufacturers aren’t so keen.”
The label also gives a very clear idea of ‘will my system accommodate a heat pump?, he notes, segueing neatly into the benefits of the new OMNIE heat pump:
The OMNIE heat pump
“We’ve always sold heat pumps, but previously we were selling them as something to enable us to sell more Underfloor Heating – and it was a version that everyone had,” says Brendan, “We are proud to launch our own product, the AeroX range and we think the trademark attention to detail will make them successful… Visually, its curved edges and two-tone grey appearance makes the unit distinctive, while internally quality, robust components are used throughout. It adds up to a quality bit of kit… We even had competitors coming to our show stand to take photos.”
The company is currently preparing a comprehensive heat pump training programme for installers and has established a training centre in its Exeter location. Such training, the group believes, is now an imperative for a manufacturer:
“We want to teach everyone the OMNIE way and to have that attention to detail…The ambition is to have 500 installers going through the training centre in the first year,” Brendan says, “The biggest challenge we have got when it comes to heat pumps is that the UK has nowhere near the number of skilled installers that we need to fit them. We are only going to get near the 600,000 heat pumps a year figure the government has quoted – which would mean quadrupling the number of installers – by getting through to consumers, by getting through to the installers and dispelling the myths. We need to nip that misinformation in the bud now.”
The company is putting a range of Knowledge Guides onto its website in a bid to educate installers, consumers and specifiers on everything from Underfloor Heating to Heat Pumps.
Again, having the right information is vital, Brendan stresses: “The efficiency of the heat pump will depend, without question, on the emitter.…Reducing flow temperature by 15 degrees will improve the efficiency – and thus the running costs – by a third…that is why you need a correctly designed underfloor system to make the most of it.”
The OMNIE AeroX range of heat pumps will be available for purchase from January 2024.
Whole-house solutions
The pairing of heat pumps and UFH is the core element in the group’s wider mission to offer ‘whole-house solutions.’ In the coming year, we are likely to see the introduction of the OMNIE MVHR ventilation system and then there are a host of associated products and services alongside the core brand.
One part of the Ridgespear group that will be of particular interest to specifiers is Carlisle-based Bauserv – which became part of Ridgespear in 2018 – which offers integrated underfloor heating and cooling systems to provide a partnership for commercial customers. Bauserv has a list of prestigious projects to its name and its position as effectively an UFH cradle-to-grave contractor offers the group significant potential to explore new commercial and multi-dwelling projects.
According to marketing manager Richard Bolton, the Bauserv business has evolved to become a specialist in underfloor heating for large-scale projects. “Buildings are often based on fine variables and the difference that can be made by, say, a 1 per cent improvement in acoustics is what Bauserv thrives on…If using UFH can save the equivalent of an extra floor in a high-rise, that is a gain in valuable floorspace for the developer. The company can also build bespoke underfloor heating to a project, which is a USP that others can’t supply.”
He adds that the claims are backed by thorough testing: “We can certify the performance of our products – not many underfloor companies can – we have gone through the acoustic testing, we have gone through the structural testing and testing for heat outputs”
Brendan chips in, neatly summing up what makes him so confident in his product range, it’s detail again:
“Our competition will say, ‘We can give you an output of up to 120 W a square metre. But we know that’s nonsense because that is measured with no floor covering and it’s running a system of 70 deg C flow temperature – neither of those are going to happen in the real world. All of our outputs are realistic, so we can guarantee you a system that is going to work as we have designed it.”
For more information on domestic and small commercial projects visit: omnie.co.uk and for larger commercial projects, visit: bauserv.co.uk
